Strengthening Reminiscence
by Calcite
Summary: After the game, Kairi takes a few moments to think on her and Sora's unusual relationship during the course of the game.


PAUSE FOR BOURGEOIS LEGALITIES "Kingdom Hearts" and all characters and situations contained within are copyrighted trademarks of Squaresoft and Disney Interactive. Permission is hereby granted by the author to reproduce this document unless you try to make money off of it; if so, please contact me first at Calcite_McWhalen@hotmail.com. I may be a grown-up cartoon fan but I do know my way around Title 17.  
  
For all interested, this is something of a loose prologue to an eventual long story that I've had bouncing around in my head. It'll be a while before that one's written, though, so this will have to do for now.  
  
****  
  
Strengthening Reminiscence  
  
****  
  
I never believed that Sora was too deep of a person.  
  
He'd always just worn his heart on his sleeve; his thoughts and emotions out for me to look at, mess with. It was fun in a wierd sort of way. He'd get mad and stomp off somewhere, and we'd be back to best friends that night. He was that way with Riku, too. Any little thing that Riku'd say to Sora could set him off and they'd go at it like little demons until I broke them up. Riku may have been a dark horse, keeping his thoughts and ideals to himself, but Sora -- no, everyone knew what he was thinking, even Tidus. That's what I told myself, anyway.  
  
How wrong I was.  
  
I never, never expected Sora to hold anything in, but now that we've shared a body, I can't help but see everything about him. It's so wierd, being able to see everything like this... but in a way it's the most humbling thing that I've ever done. I've never been so totally wrong about anyone before. Sure, he's always just charging off into the first thing that he sees -- God knows that if Sora could hear me all the time he'd be deaf from the screaming -- but underneath it all was a current of tension and worry. Still, he put it aside for me and Donald and Goofy.  
  
Those two... Sometimes I just want to slap the both of them silly for being the way that they are. I mean, when they first encountered each other and Donald told Sora that there wouldn't be any frowning on their journey, I felt him want to scream inside. I know that, even though I was terribly confused (waking up inside a body that you can't control is a tough thing for the first time), I was yelling at them. Instead he proved just how strong of a person he was by doing his best to grin for them, even after they exchanged a dismayed look. Sometimes, though, I wanted to hug them both to death, like when they joined Sora again even when they had to betray their king to do it. I just wish that it wasn't Riku on the receiving end of what we gave him.  
  
Before all this happened I always liked Riku as a friend, and pretty much the entire island had already handpicked the boy for my boyfriend, but I never really thought of Riku like that. Neither had I thought of Sora like that, or Tidus, or Wakka, or anyone else! I was just everybody's friend and they were all my friends. End of story, right? Well, that's not the gospel according to Sora. I had been wondering all the morning before just why he was so intent on beating Riku in that stupid race that they set up. I had no idea it had to do with that fruit, and if I had known I... I don't know what I would've done but they'd all be sorry! Still, inside, I felt pretty flattered that Sora had run that hard for me.  
  
Sora... he definitely got the strongest heart that I know, even stronger than my heart. A lot stronger than my heart. Sora's not supposed to be using the Keyblade, you see. It's Riku's weapon, or at least it was, but Sora's heart was so much stronger than Riku's that the Keyblade couldn't help but go straight to Sora. He's the only person that could use it properly. My little heart doesn't even begin to compare to how pure and holy Sora's heart is. I felt dirty even being near him sometimes, inside of him. I can remember a few times....  
  
****  
  
We were on the first world that they'd gone to after we found out what had been going on -- Wonderland, I think that it was called. I was still scared of everything at that point and I hadn't figured out how to keep his feelings and mine apart then. Every time he pulled out that Keyblade he felt a bit afraid, and that was all coming from me. Every time he ran a Heartless through his adrenal surge left me shaking inside of him. Donald's crazy magic was still getting me to freak out inside of Sora.  
  
Anyway, we had just had a bad encounter with the Queen of Hearts over somebody trying to steal her heart. She'd imprisoned some girl named Alice and Goofy had volunteered the three of them to find out who, exactly, was trying to steal hearts. We all knew what was behind it -- the Heartless were responsible -- but proving it was another story, and to do it we all went into the nearby Lotus Forest and ran right into a critter of sorts. A cat.  
  
Normally, I don't mind cats. They're not my favorite thing, of course, but neither do I hate them. This one, though, I didn't like him. He had a big eerie smile that never left his face and he would disappear and reappear anytime he felt like it and he had these big wierd yellow eyes and -- and -- and I didn't like him one bit! I decided right then that that wierd cat was always lying when he said something, especially since he didn't have to open his mouth to do it all the time.  
  
Since I didn't know how to keep my emotions seperate from Sora's he started out not liking the critter either. After all, it was easy to not like something that could just leave and show up again without any warning. Sora didn't stay that way, though. He listened to the cat, even when he and I both didn't like him, and the cat came through for us in the end, proving what side he was on. I felt so wrong, though, and I resolved to find a way to keep my emotions away from Sora after that. It was a good thing that I got the skill down quickly, too, because when the Trickmaster appeared, I just fainted dead away.  
  
Not much help there, was I?  
  
****  
  
Oh, and there's also Atlantica. Definitely Atlantica. I couldn't help but think of Atlantica. It's pretty, it's nice to be in -- having a tail with a fin was always one of my fantasies, so that I could swim to my first home, wherever that is -- but it also has Ariel in it. Oh yes. Ariel. Not one of my favorite people.  
  
See, I'd been able to keep my emotions away from Sora's for a while now, enough to recognise what I was telling you about above -- his crazy crush, that is. I have to say I didn't know how to react to it. I never thought that the nice, relaxed, friendly, safe Sora could ever put me in a position like that. Even if he didn't know he was doing it he was still doing it, and I didn't want him to do it. I had no idea what I was feeling because of it...  
  
...but things became a lot more complicated when Ariel swam onto the picture.  
  
Ariel was everything that I wasn't, in a way. She was always bright and friendly. She never held back what she was feeling for fear or effect or any other stupid reason that I came up with. She could swim like a champion, even better than Sora could and he was in the water at the islands so much we sometimes wondered if he was born underwater. Not only that, but she was much more mature than I was, if you know what I mean. Sora didn't mind that at all, as far as I could tell, and that made me angry, and I didn't know why, because he wasn't my property, and it all made me really confused!  
  
Anyway, Ariel had this little crab thing teach us how to swim with our tailfin, and there was some fighting -- some Heartless tried to get in on the party. Then they all decided to go visit Ariel's dad, the King of Atlantica. Sora had been thrilled that he had been swimming with a princess. I liked Ariel even less, and clenched my fists. I still hadn't figured out why I was angry, but I had figured out that it had to do with Sora, and Ariel, and the two of them together. It didn't help that Sora kept sneaking looks at her 'shells'. He didn't have anything in mind but curiousity, but still...  
  
The two of them, along with Donald and Goofy, swam around trying to figure out what the Heartless were up to. I've never been more grateful for Donald and Goofy than I was there, when the two of them kept an eye on Sora. For his part Sora kept an eye on himself -- I could feel his careful restraint when he was around her, to treat her like a lady -- but he was still intrigued by the mer-beauty that was swimming around with him.  
  
I didn't understand why, like anything else that had happened at Atlantica, but every time that Ariel helped Sora out, or when Sora decided to visit the grotto where Ariel kept her stuff, or when he was willing to argue with her father over her -- it all made me feel more and more angry, but what could I do? So I didn't do much of anything. Being so helpless, stuck inside somebody, didn't really strike until that day. I couldn't do anything so I didn't feel anything, either. I was relieved when they all beat Ursula, of course, but I stopped caring, kind of. It made me feel all dirty, not caring about Sora, but what could I do?  
  
And I'm supposed to be some kind of "pure-hearted princess" too.  
  
****  
  
That state of mind lasted until we got to Halloween Town.  
  
Arriving at Halloween Town wasn't the best moment of my life. I never did get used to Halloween back on the islands; it was always a bit too spooky for me. I kept indoors and thought about nice, bright things. But in Halloween Town, nothing was nice or bright or even neutral -- the place was 100%, in-your-face spooky. All of the motionless Heartless hovering around weren't helping matters either. I'm not strong enough to just ignore all of that, so I kept close to Sora's emotions. He wasn't scared, at least not as much as I was. Him and Donald and Goofy fit right in, anyway; they made a new friend, Jack almost right away. I liked Jack well enough, I guess. I didn't pay much attention to him.  
  
The face-off with Oogie Boogie was pretty scary. Even though I wasn't caring too much at that point, I managed to not faint but it was close a couple of times, like when Sora was tossed into the air by that crazy saw thing. I was a little proud of myself , not fainting. Then, a little later on, I saw Jack talking to his girlfriend Sally. I saw the sorrow and the hope in his eyes, and the relief when she forgave him so easily, and I felt Sora wishing that he could have that same sort of thing... but not with Ariel or Alice or anyone else. He wanted to be close to me like that.  
  
I don't know why, but sitting on the in-between place that I was in, that got to me. I wasn't completely helpless, after all - I mean, I could occasionally send him a few words, try to talk to him, even though it was never a two-way street - but I couldn't do anything about this situation and I hadn't bothered trying. I should have known that Sora, who'd always carried a torch for me, wasn't about to let it go - his heart was too strong for that - but my own heart was way too weak to even think of that.  
  
That woke me up, because I realized that I wanted that sort of thing, too, and that having it with Sora was beginning to feel like a better and better idea all the time.  
  
****  
  
When we reached the Hollow Bastion, that huge Heartless fortress in the middle of a parted sea, I found myself despising Riku for the first time.  
  
It wasn't that he got Goofy and Donald to go with him. They had to do it, even though neither of them really wanted to do it. It wasn't how my body was being used as a tool, like he had on Hook's ship. It wasn't that he took away the Keyblade, even though that did get me riled up. It wasn't how he had managed to beat that huge hulking monster, the Beast, without breaking so much as a sweat. It was the toy sword. That's what got me angry enough to. to maybe even hate him a bit. Maybe. I don't really know.  
  
Anyway, Sora wasn't doing too good. His heart was the strongest thing that I'd ever seen but there's a limit on strength and I'm ashamed to say that I thought he'd finally reached it. I hadn't ever seen Sora so down, and when I looked at how he was feeling, I saw that he thought that, in not being able to save Riku from what had happened to him, he'd let me down too. It wasn't one of my finer moments. I wanted to slap him, to cry, to find a way to tell him that no, not after everything that we've gone through could he ever let me down. I was stuck again, though. But he surprised me again. After a few words from that giant Beast Sora got back up. His heart surged back out to beyond where it had been and he internally resolved to not only save my body, but also to get his old friend to wake up.  
  
I'd figured that he'd want to help me out, but Riku? Riku was beyond saving. As far as I was concerned he was dead, and there was a Heartless that happened to look a lot like him in his place. I hated that creation. I refused - absolutely refused - to give Riku any kind of credit and I almost hoped that the huge Beast would just kill him and let it go.  
  
That lasted we ran into him the second time. Then I saw what was really going on, and I again realized how impure my heart was. Riku hadn't died at all. Somebody had moved into his body and even with Sora's heart right there, holding out hope, I hadn't been able to see it. The person called himself Ansem and he was one mean man. I felt my heart cringe at the man's presence. He was Heartless embodied, and as he explained to Sora what had happened when the dimension we used to live in caved in on itself, Sora's heart cringed too. until he told Sora that I'd been with him all along. The flash of realization and the relief that I was fine took him off his guard, and the evil Riku-Ansem guy took a shot at him (intending to get to me, of course. it seems I'm always causing trouble for Sora) and I screamed for him to wake up and. and. and his beautifully pure heart listened to my dirty old one. He got his guard up.  
  
****  
  
The rest, I guess you know, is history. I give him my pendant; he goes and puts all of the stars and realities back where they belong, and just happens to disappear at the same time. It's been six months since I've seen him, and even Selphie is telling me to move it along. Don't any of them understand? I'm still waiting for him because I know that he's doing everything he can to get back here. He's still got something of mine, right?  
  
Right.  
  
I know he'll give it back, too. After all, I do know everything about him. It might take some time but he'll be walking in the door one day. I just know it. Selphie (she's become my confidant) tells me that I'd changed, that I was stronger than I was before to keep hoping for something like this. I don't know about that, but I wouldn't be surprised if the overflow from Sora's powerful heart had washed onto mine somehow, making it closer to how strong his was. All I know is that he'll come back, and until he does I'll wait for him here. 


End file.
